10 Johnson County restaurants with the most critical and swing violations in FY 2012

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When working in the kitchen of his year-old Iowa City restaurant, Jose Garcia admits some food can’t be prepared in the same manner as is customary in his family’s homeland of Mexico.

“If you were to go to Mexico or Central America and you’re making homemade chorizo, you can leave that chorizo outside overnight and it cures,” said Garcia, the owner of La Michoacana, 436 Highway 1 W. “But here you can’t do that; you have to put it away.”

While Garcia says he has a good relationship with state health inspectors and works hard to comply with regulations, as a whole, small, ethnic restaurants tend to have a more difficult time meeting food safety standards, according to a recent academic study.

That holds true in Johnson County, where locally owned, ethnic restaurants make up the majority of food service licensees with the most serious violations last fiscal year, including a Chinese buffet on the Coralville Strip that racked up the most offenses.

Of the 10 restaurants with the most critical violations from July 2011 to June 2012, eight are locally owned establishments serving ethnic fare, according to state inspection data.

“When it comes to a restaurant, you have to work with the rules and kind of adapt to the new rules,” said Garcia, who parlayed a successful taco truck operation into a full-scale restaurant that opened in January. “That’s where people fall short. It’s hard for a lot of people that I’ve known and I’ve worked for. They fall short of that because they’re so used to doing it the way they were taught, and a lot of people don’t like to change.”

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Restaurants in Johnson County with 10 or more critical and swing violations in FY 2012

* A critical violation is one that, if left uncorrected, could result in harm or injury. A swing violation is one that, while not critical unto itself, could result in harm or injury to a customer or employee when other violations are considered.

A review of the inspections reports for Johnson County’s nearly 600 restaurants found that Peking Buffet, a Chinese restaurant at Second Street and First Avenue in Coralville, had a combined 26 critical and swing violations this past fiscal year — more than any other local restaurant in that period. Most restaurants in the county had five or fewer such violations last fiscal year.

Inspectors from the Johnson County Public Health Department have responded to several complaints stemming from Peking Buffet since July 2011 and have made more than a dozen documented visits in that time to keep the restaurant in compliance and operating. The complaints and inspections detailed cockroaches in the kitchen and dining room, food being left on the buffet at inadequate temperatures or not being cooked at the proper heat, and hair found on food items in the buffet.

Roaches appear to have been a persistent problem at the restaurant this year, according to inspection reports. On Aug. 30, a couple filed a complaint stating they dined at Peking Buffet the previous night and saw a roach on their table next to the man’s plate. They were told by their waitress, according to the complaint, that “it was nothing to worry about. They had sprayed the night before and the cockroaches would be dead later that night.” According to the complaint, the husband and wife refused to pay and left the restaurant, and both later vomited.

On a September visit in response to another complaint, an inspector observed live roaches in the employee restroom and on the exterior wall of a walk-in cooler, a roach carcass under the sushi bar and a cluster of roaches underneath the wok stove, according to the report. The restaurant hired a pest control worker, who told the inspector he was beginning a four- to five-week plan to eliminate the insects, the complaint said.

Contacted for comment, Peking Buffet owner John Wei referred questions to restaurant management. A message left at the restaurant was not returned.

A 2010 study at Kansas State University found that independently owned, ethnic restaurants on average registered more than 50 percent more food safety violations per inspection than independent, non-ethnic establishments. They also received more visits from inspectors, a result of a greater number of follow-up inspections and complaints. The study, which analyzed inspections for 500 randomly selected restaurants over a 12-month period, found that time and temperature control, handwashing and proper use of utensils were the most common violations found in ethnic restaurants.

“Ethnic restaurants are having more trouble with food code violations; that is fact and there’s no question about it,” said study co-author Junehee Kwon, an associate professor in the Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics at Kansas State. “The reason behind that is what we’re trying to find. Why is that? It could be a language barrier. It could be something that they didn’t teach them through the traditional training.”

The Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals contracts its restaurant inspection duties in this county to Johnson County Public Health, which has three dedicated inspectors on staff. Those inspectors pay at least two unannounced visits to full-service restaurants per year, with the goal of preventing the spread of food-borne illness.

The inspectors are armed with checklist of 37 items categorized as critical, non-critical and swing violations. A critical violation is one that, if left uncorrected, could result in harm or injury. A swing violation is one that while not critical unto itself, could result in harm or injury to a customer or employee when other violations are considered.

“It’s an expectation of the public that when you go to a restaurant or a grocery store, that the food you buy is not going to make you ill,” Johnson County Public Health Director Doug Beardsley said. “So it’s not just the food, but how it’s handled. Are the workers washing their hands? Are they healthy? Are we taking foods that are contaminated and cross-contaminating other things?”

Violations often are corrected at the time of the inspection; an inspector, for example, can require outdated food to be disposed of on the spot. Other critical violations, however, can require a follow-up visit to ensure they’ve been corrected, or a restaurant may be required to submit a form stating that they’ve made changes.

Inspectors have the authority to close a restaurant, but in Johnson County it has rarely come to that, officials said. The 2007 temporary closure of Joensy’s in Solon for health risks, including roaches and a dirty kitchen, was the most high-profile closure in recent years.

In most cases, however, restaurants remain open for business while they work with inspectors to make the appropriate changes in a timely manner.

“We want the public to be assured of their safety when they go out to have dinner with their family, that they’re certain they’re going to have a safe, healthy experience,” said James Lacina, the environmental health coordinator for Johnson County who oversees food license inspections. “A lot of the dangers we enforce and address at the establishments are micro-biological in nature; they’re not visible to the naked eye. Some of these practices are complicated, and they want to do a great job, so we’re trying to help them make sure they’re aware of all the steps they need to take to keep the public safety in mind.”

Lacina said the most common violations that inspectors find include dirty food contact surfaces, food in boxes being stored on the floor, food being maintained at inadequate hot and cold temperatures and not having accessible soap and paper towels at handwashing stations.

Restaurants are required to post their most recent inspection report in a publicly visible place, and reports dating to 2005 are available to the public online through the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals website. While the reports can be a good tool for consumers when assessing a restaurant, they may not necessarily tell the whole story, officials said.

Kot Flora is among the restaurant goers who will, on occasion, look up the inspection records of a business to see how they’re faring. As the former director of Johnson County Public Health, though, she is likely more savvy than the average person when it comes to food safety.

Flora said the inspection reports can give a snapshot of a restaurant on a given day, but they do not necessarily paint a complete picture.

“It’s a picture of that facility at that time the inspector was there, so it’s not a projection of how it will be the next day,” Flora said. “But when you have a number of those inspection report forms you can look at online, you get a pretty good picture of how the operation is.”

Beardsley said a poor inspection may not necessarily mean a restaurant has widespread or ongoing problems.

“I don’t know that it happens very often where you go in and have a perfect score,” Beardsley said. “In the food industry, there’s a lot of turnover in personnel, a lot of training that goes on. So just the fact that you found something on the score doesn’t mean it’s a bad establishment. If we’re aware that the practices are bad, and we’ve done enough work with them to correct those — otherwise they’re not going to have their license. If we feel that some place is a real imminent threat to the public’s health, their license will be suspended until they get that corrected.”

That said, a pattern of violations or complaints could be an indication that a business “hasn’t fully learned all the lessons,” Beardsley said.

“Those are public records, and the restaurants, grocery stores and food facilities understand those are public records, so they should be doing everything they can to have good inspections,” Beardsley said.

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The Kansas State study found that independent ethnic restaurants had an average of 4.5 critical violations and 2.8 non-critical violations per inspection, compared to 2.9 and 1.7, respectively, for independent non-ethnic restaurants.

The study theorizes that the cultural traditions of food preparation passed down through generations may be a contributing factor, though researchers are still trying to better understand the issue. Kwon, the study’s co-author, says her findings show that increased food safety training and education is necessary in ethnic restaurants, and that the inspection system could be improved to better incorporate other cultures.

“Inspectors must understand the culture to approach ethnic restaurants with ‘respect,’ a very important cultural value,” Kwon said in an email. “Food safety training must be provided in the language they understand well with cultural sensitivity.”

“When it comes to following the rules, it takes a lot more work,” said Garcia, the owner at La Michoacana. “A lot of people tend to say, ‘We’ve been doing it this way, why should we do the extra work?’ But it’s just something we have to do.”